


If You Go Down to the Woods Today

by thisiszircon



Series: The Moment of Awakening [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: F/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 22:50:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4805117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiszircon/pseuds/thisiszircon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Ace picnic.   (There are no trees, and they are uninterrupted by teddy-bears, in spite of the title.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Go Down to the Woods Today

**Author's Note:**

> With grateful thanks to my invaluable beta-reader and editor, [Nemo the Everbeing.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemo_the_Everbeing)  
> 

_Keverne_

_Late Summer_

 

"Professor," said Ace.

"Ace?"

They were wandering along the edge of a sunlit meadow on the garden planet of Keverne, picking the yoodelberries that grew in abundance on the thorny hedges.  A few weeks had gone by since that strange and unsettling dream: the one Ace was doing her best not to think about.

"I was in the wardrobe room earlier.  I needed socks."

"Hmm."

Yoodelberries looked like enormous blackberries to Ace.  They certainly tasted similar.  Maybe blackberry with a hint of raspberry.

"Always plenty of socks in the wardrobe room," Ace noted.

"Socks go on feet," the Doctor mused.  "Feet get walked on."

"Yeah.  Socks take some punishment."

The Doctor had been adamant that the enormous blackberries were called yoodelberries here on Keverne, though Ace had no way of knowing whether he'd just made up a random word to make them sound more exotic.  As they paused at a particularly fruit-heavy bit of hedgerow, the Doctor hooked the handle of his brolly over one of the higher brambles and pulled it down so Ace could reach it.  She relieved it of its burden, noting that her basket was rapidly filling.

"Always the big toe," she said.

"Hmm?"

"Socks.  Always the big toe that goes first."

"It's a conspiracy," the Doctor agreed, looking suitably suspicious.  He let the bramble return to its thorny heights and they paused, studying each other.  Then they both broke into a grin.

They moved on.  It was a pleasant walk on a pleasant day.  Keverne had a relatively young sun, and the planet had found that happy solar orbit which rendered the temperature comfortable to carbon-based life.  There was green grass and wild flowers as far as the eye could see, which was quite some distance given the gentle roll to the landscape.  The occasional flyer passed by overhead, low enough for them to exchange cheery waves with the occupant, but not so low that the hum of the engine might intrude.  The only soundtrack to their countryside walk was the birdsong.  Apart from that, they were alone and undisturbed: no invasion, no civil unrest, no plagues or killing sprees.  The Doctor had landed the TARDIS and invited her out for a walk in the countryside, berry-picking, and for once it had transpired that a countryside walk was all that was to happen.

(Ace wasn't stupid, of course.  Prior to this countryside walk she'd double-checked that (a) they were not stealing produce from someone's private property, or (b) violating some sacred area of religious significance, or (c) yanking sentient vegetable life from its thorny-hedgerow home.  Or, indeed, (d) chomping alien berries that would have unforeseen side-effects.  She'd been doing this adventuring thing a while now, and you could never be too sure.)

"So anyway," Ace went on, "I was in the wardrobe room."

"You said."

"And I got to thinking."

"About socks."

"No, not about socks.  About clothes in general."  Ace saw a particularly luscious specimen of yoodelberry and scoffed it before it could nestle its way into her basket.

The Doctor tut-tutted.  "Try to leave some room for my yoodelberry and perfle pie."

"Perfles?"

"Perfles."

"Okay, you definitely made that one up."

"Maybe I did.  Maybe I didn't."  He glanced at her, his eyebrow arching slyly.  "Does it matter?"

"Not really.  What are perfles?"

"Sort of a cross between an apple and a pear."

"Shouldn't they be pearples, then?"

"No, you're thinking of plums.  Plums are purple.  Perfles are reddish and yellow."

"Ha bloody ha."  Ace realised that she'd been sidetracked.  Typical.  "So about the wardrobe room."

"Hmm?"  He shot her a glance, barely attentive but not, at least, irritated.

"I noticed," she said, "that there's a whole lot of clothes in there."

"Almost like the name of the room gives it away, isn't it?"  He lifted his umbrella and pointed out a butterfly fluttering over a nearby cluster of white and pink wild flowers.  "That's a Feridean Umber.  Beautiful."

"You're not distracting me again."

"I think you'll find I am."

"Are not."

"Oh go on.  Just a little one."  He smirked at Ace's exasperated sound.  "Just watch it a moment."

Ace sighed, but she paused in her scan of the yoodelberry bushes and turned to face the wild flowers.  The butterfly had landed and was feeding delicately, its wings folded.  Ace watched.  Just as she was getting bored the insect spread its wings a few times, almost experimentally.  The glare, as sunlight hit vivid, iridescent orange, was enough to make Ace narrow her eyes.  Then the butterfly took off and, in a flashing, swooping flutter, headed away in search of further choice flowers to drink from.

"Okay," she acknowledged, "that is a very pretty butterfly."

The Doctor made a satisfied noise, then spun on the spot and resumed his stroll alongside the yoodelberry bushes.  "Told you."

Ace glared at his back for a moment before she hastened to catch up.

~~~

Of course, the problem with refusing to think about a dream that obviously meant nothing was the thought and effort it took.  To not think about something, you had to think about doing so.  Therefore the harder Ace tried to dismiss the dream as a random bit of brain-junk, the more time and effort she seemed to devote to the damn thing.  Which was not the plan at all.

Pretty green planets with sunshine and berries were a much better distraction.

"So here's the thing, Professor," she said as they strolled.

"Here's the what?"

"The thing.  My point.  That I'm trying to make about the wardrobe room."

"Ah."

She waited a beat, then said, "Bras?"

The Doctor wasn't fazed.  "You'll find questions are much more comprehensible when they involve verbs."

"You have a remarkable collection of bras."

"That was less a question and more a statement."

"Interesting statement, though."

"I thought you wanted socks."

"I found socks.  I found bras too."

"I'm given to understand that they are an item of apparel convenient to the female form."

Ace smirked.  The Doctor hadn't yet blushed and backed off, like she was expecting.  It felt like they were sparring.  "Very convenient.  Especially for females who make a habit of running away from monsters."

"I'll take your word."

"Please do."  Ace held up the yoodelberry that had just been picked, admiring its symmetry in the sunshine.  She handed it to the Doctor, who grunted something that sounded like gratitude and popped it in his mouth.  "So would I be right in assuming you've never needed a bra yourself?"

The Doctor stopped walking.  He hadn't exactly stumbled, but Ace had surprised him.  "Is this a comment about my weight?" he asked, after he'd finished his yoodelberry.  "I thought I'd left all that behind when Mel took off with Glitz."

Ace winced at the mention of Glitz, then reminded herself that the incident in the hold of Glitz's spacecraft was only ever going to be as important as she made it, which was to say, not very.  She put the memory aside and turned around to face her friend.  "No comment about your weight."  She used the excuse to look the Doctor up and down.  She smiled. "Your weight is perfectly you."

"Oh.  Is it?"

"It is."

"I see."  He frowned.  "Then you're accusing me of transvestism?"

"Nope."  She rolled her eyes.  "And if the subject of transvestism ever came up, it would not be as an accusation, by the way.  I may not know much, but I know that judging someone because of the way they like to look, to dress, whatever - that's just bollocks."

The Doctor grunted what sounded like agreement.

Ace nodded to herself and went on, "No, I'm asking if you've ever been female."

The Doctor raised his chin a little.  "Oh."

"So have you?"

"Um, no."

"Could you be?  I mean - you're the seventh you, right?"

"All my selves have been male, if that's what you're asking," the Doctor said.

"It is.  I was just wondering.  You know.  If you can remake yourself from time to time, then what's to stop you choosing a female form, not a male one?"

"Ah."  The Doctor frowned.  "That's actually quite a complicated question."

"Yeah, well, I'm a complicated woman."

The comment made him pause as they walked along the hedgerow, and he turned to favour her with a discerning look.  Ace stopped alongside him and waited.

"Hmm," he finally said, and started to walk again.

"Well what does that mean?" Ace demanded.

"It means hmm," the Doctor said over his shoulder.  "It means I shall have to give some consideration to your complexities."

"Oh."  She frowned.  "And is that good or bad?"

The Doctor glanced back at her, then he continued walking.  "Don't stop picking the berries," he called.  "We'll need lots.  I'm making yoodelberry fool as well, if I can get some mascarpone."

Evasion.  Typical.  He wasn't even trying to be subtle about it.

"Fine."  Ace caught up, spotted a nice cluster of fruit-laden brambles, and picked.  "Why aren't you helping?"

"I am.  My job is to reach the higher brambles with my brolly."

"You've done that, what, three times in the last half hour?"

"And I'm happy to help."

"You have a basket too."  She looked at the larger basket with the blanket over the top that the Doctor carried.

"It's full."

"Of what?"

"Our picnic, obviously."  The Doctor turned her way, a disbelieving look on his face.  "What did you expect?"  He gestured at their surroundings.  "Sunshine, meadows, nearly lunchtime?  I know you grew up a city-dweller, Ace, but really!"

Ace frowned.  She remembered reading Enid Blyton in the school library when she was nine.  She remembered stories about groups of kids taking picnics with them on long summer holiday afternoons, exploring cliff-top paths or ruined castles or woodland.  There was always ginger beer, she recalled.  She'd asked her mother what ginger beer was like.  Her mother had laughed and told her that when she was the one on her feet for eight hours a day in the salon, and she was paying for the groceries, she could find out.

"Don't think I've ever been on a picnic," she said, as lightly as she could.

The Doctor stopped.  Ace stopped too, but she made sure she was facing the hedgerow and gathering yoodelberries with as much focus as she could muster.

"No?" he asked.

She shrugged one shoulder.  "Packet of crisps in the school playground - does that count?"

"No."

"Bag of chips around the fire up on Horsenden Hill?"

"No."

"Oh!  I once took a packed lunch on a school trip.  Packed lunch was mandatory."

"Where did you eat it?"

"On the coach.  About nine thirty."

"Ah.  Doesn't count."

"Oh."  Ace recalled the packed lunch in question - two jam sandwiches made by folding white slices over.  And three rich tea biscuits.  Her mother had habitually nicked the rich tea biscuits from the salon, where they'd be offered to clients along with bad coffee.  Ace was quite pleased to learn that such a thing in no way constituted a picnic.  "Well, anyway, no.  No picnic experience here."

The Doctor huffed behind her, then his umbrella came into view and he pulled down a bramble for her.  "Sometimes," he said, "I wonder what they teach young people at school."

"I definitely didn't do picnics there," she said with a smile.

"Well we're doing one today.  I suspect you'll be a natural.  Come on."

They moved off again.

"So about my complicated question?" Ace reminded the Doctor.

Possibly because Ace's lack of picnic-experience had aroused his sympathies, or possibly for a reason in line with his own unfathomable agendas, the Doctor launched into an answer.  Apparently it was possible for Time Lords to regenerate into Time Ladies, and _vice versa_ , but only with the assistance of Gallifreyan medical technology designed for that purpose.  A certain device was required, that could rewrite information at the chromosome level in the nuclei of certain key cells prior to a regeneration.  (Most TARDIS medical bays were equipped with such a device.  When your lifespan was as long as the average Time Lord, the issue of gender identity often became quite a fluid thing.)

Somewhere here there was information worthy of interest, Ace thought.  The sight of female clothing in the wardrobe room had prompted only a mild case of wondering, but for some reason, on this particular day, the Doctor's answer felt significant.  It was clear that the Doctor came from a race with at least two distinct genders.  You had to wonder what the point was in having two genders if biology didn't mandate that they occasionally interact in interesting ways.  Which prompted another bit of wondering: why did the Doctor travel the galaxies with human females when he belonged to a race that had females of its own?

These wonderings, she told herself quickly, had nothing at all to do with that stupid dream.  Obviously.  Much more likely that her curiosity had been aroused - _wrong word, wrong word, choose a better word_ \- her curiosity had been sparked by all the learning she'd been doing of late in the TARDIS.  Ever since their visit to Perivale, a few months earlier, Ace had turned into a knowledge junkie.

She knew why, too.  That return to her old stomping grounds had proved to her, once and for all, that the TARDIS was her true home.  No more 'going home by the scenic route'.  No more thinking of this time as an interlude, a restless phase, to be enjoyed for what it was before she grew up and settled down on one planet.  Between the Fenric stuff being resolved and the recognition that twentieth century London was no longer where she belonged, she'd made up her mind.  Travelling in the TARDIS was the only life she wanted.  It was time, therefore, to embrace this life fully.  Time to expand her talents beyond acts of violence with baseball bats and high explosives.  Time to prove that she was worthy of her place at the Doctor's side.

It was time, frankly, to grow up: to stop playing at being a space adventurer and to become a real one.

So she'd learned how to operate parts of the console.  She'd memorised seventy-eight of the settings on the sonic screwdriver, even though the Doctor said he didn't seem to have much need for it in his current incarnation.  She'd studied galactic geography and navigation.  In order to combine this with an ability to plot four-dimensional coordinates in the TARDIS, she'd even allowed the Doctor to teach her the mathematics required to make sense of it all.  Maths!  And she'd been quite good at it!  Maybe it all came down to the teacher.

So anyway, she had ample evidence that her desire to learn more about Gallifreyans and their clothing preferences had nothing to do with silly erotic dreams that meant nothing and had already been successfully explained away.  And a good thing that was, too.

"So tell me," the Doctor said after a pause in their conversation.  "Was there a reason you imagined a female Doctor?"

"Besides curiosity?"  Ace shrugged.  "Not really."  She turned away to examine the hedgerow.

"You wouldn't prefer me as a female?"

"I'm not sure what you're asking."

"I think the question was straightforward.  Would you find it easier to travel with me if I happened to be female?"

Ace thought about it.  A memory popped into her head: she'd have been about fourteen when Sandra Hampton had shown up at Perivale Comprehensive, new to their year.  Sandra had been tall, slender, close-cropped and androgynous, like Annie Lennox.  Ace had developed a brief but intense crush.

"I tried to be gay once," she said lightly.

The Doctor stumbled, tripping over his own feet, and righted himself with a skip.  Ace silently cheered this minor victory.

"That wasn't quite what I was getting at," he said.  "I was thinking more about how it might be easier for you to talk about bras with a female friend."

"Suppose it might," Ace said.  "But I don't feel any great need to talk about bras on a regular basis."

"Hmm."

"Or periods.  Do periods freak you out?"

"Why would they?  Perfectly natural process."

"Perfectly natural _uncomfortable_ process."

"For that you have my sympathy, and my excellent knowledge of soothing herbal teas."

"And much appreciated it is," Ace said.  A thought occurred.  "Do Time Ladies menstruate?"

"No."

She blinked.  "Lucky buggers.  Why not?"

"They don't ovulate."

"They don't?" she said, trying to sound casual.  "Where do baby Time Lords come from, then?"

The Doctor was quiet for a while.  Then he breathed so deeply that Ace heard the hitch, in spite of the way she was determinedly looking at the yoodelberry bushes.

"This is your day for complicated questions, isn't it?" he said.

"Not doing it on purpose," Ace grumbled.

The Doctor sighed.  "Suffice it to say, until relatively recently my people relied on medical science for the perpetuation of the species."

"Test tube Time Lords?"

"If you like."

"And more recently?"

"I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain the curse of the Pythia and my race's subsequent infertility.  Nor, indeed, the signs on Gallifrey that the curse is beginning to dissipate-"

"'Curse'!"  Ace experienced the flicker of a memory from O Level English Literature.  "Bloody hell, Professor, did we fall into 'Macbeth' or something?  'When shall we three meet again?'  Can't you leave the magic spells to us mere-mortal peasants?"

"Curses don't require sorcery to manifest," he said irritably.  "A curse is simply something that causes harm.  Often in perpetuity."

Ace rolled her eyes.  "Right.  Well, I don't like the sound of this Pythia and I'm glad the bad thing is dissipating, anyway."

"Hmm."

Ace glanced at the Doctor.  He looked tense and unhappy.  She regretted spoiling their sunlit day.  "And to answer your earlier question - I don't think I'd like travelling with you better if you got all lady-fied."  He cracked a smile at that, as his eyes tracked a distant flyer.  "Happy with you just the way you are."

"Ah," the Doctor said.  After a moment he bumped her shoulder with his own.  "Likewise."

~~~

In the corner of a bright, sunny meadow, sheltered from the breeze by the surrounding hedgerows, Ace sat on a picnic blanket and sipped ginger beer from a thermos flask cup.  She decided she liked ginger beer.  Even more than that, she liked that it had formed part of her inaugural picnic without having to ask for it in advance.

"Aren't picnics supposed to involve being attacked by ants or wasps or something?" Ace asked.

The Doctor, replete with sandwiches, celery sticks with dips, and fruit salad, now lay on his back with his hat tipped forward to cover his face.  His jacket was bundled up and supported his head.  His hands were folded neatly over his chest, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up.

"Not on Keverne," he said.

"No?"

"No, only friendly insects on Keverne."

"Good."

There was a pause.  Ace scanned the meadow.  It was peaceful and colourful and lovely.  And now they’d finished eating – come to think of it – it was just a _tiny_ bit boring…

"Of course," the Doctor added, "the Kevernian Meadow Snake is worthy of a wide berth.  Deadly venom in its bite."

Ace's eyes widened, and without even thinking about it she surged to her feet, casting around in the grass and under the nearby hedgerows.  "What does it look like?" she demanded.

The Doctor snorted, tipped his hat back and looked up at her.  He was smirking.  "Got you," he said, with great satisfaction.

Ace sat down again.  "There is no Kevernian Meadow Snake."

"Of course there is.  Small, green and yellow.  Rather beautiful.  Utterly harmless."

"Unlike myself," Ace said menacingly.

The Doctor glanced at her, then returned his hat to its original position and settled back down again.

"Well you're certainly not small, green and yellow," he allowed.

"I meant-"

"Nor harmless," he agreed.  "Though I'll take my chances."

Ace drew breath to speak, frowned, exhaled again.  She reviewed the words just exchanged.  Then she shook her head and settled down for a sunbathe next to the Doctor.

There was certainly no point in spending the rest of the afternoon trying to work out whether, with his throwaway comment, the Doctor had told her he thought she was beautiful.  So she definitely wasn't going to do that.

Why would she even care, anyway?

~~~~~~

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story before the first Capaldi season, in which it was finally confirmed that Gallifreyans (at least, those with a regenerative cycle) are able to change gender. The fiction I create herein is not yet contradicted by canon, but it probably will be. Eventually. (Such is the lot of a writer of fan-fiction.) I rarely edit once I've published, though, so if contradictions have emerged, I can only apologise for my lack of foresight.


End file.
